italian-studies: Scholarly discussions in any field of Italian studies
from: Joseph Farrell [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 19 September 2016 18:20
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Subject: Dario Fo schedule in Edinburgh in October
We have organised a series of events in Edinburgh in October in celebration of Dario Fo's 90th birthday earlier this year. This includes a visit by Dario himself. He did not wish to perform a show but has agreed to do a conversazione with me on the stage of the Royal Lyceum. The date is Sunday 9 Oct, at 5.00. Tickets avbailable from the theatre box office. The discussion will start from a recent book of his Nuovo manuale minimo dell'attore, published in translation on 22 Sept by Methuen as New Tricks of the Trade.
There will also be from 3 - 30 October the first exhibition of his artwork in the UK. This will take place in three venues, The Scotish Storytelling Centre at Netherbow, the Lyceum and the Italian Cultural Institute.
In addition, there are various panels and discussion groups on his work over the month.
Details are given in the attached press release. Please spread word of these events.
(Prof) Joe Farrell
Dancing with Colours, Whipping with Words
6-30th October 2016
Dario Fo and political theatre season comes to Edinburgh in Dario Fo’s 90th year.
Playwright, actor, comedian, singer, theatre director, stage designer, songwriter, painter and political campaigner , Dario Fo is arguably the most widely performed living playwright in world theatre. Recipient of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Literature, his plays, including Can't Pay? Won't Pay!, The Virtuous Burglar, Mistero Buffo, Trumpets & Raspberries and Accidental Death of an Anarchist, have been translated into 30 languages and performed across the world.
Dario Fo and his late wife and partner in life and work - feminist writer and actor Franca Rame - forged a new style of riotous farce and popular theatre which took as its subject the burning political and social questions of the day. Their work influenced Scotland’s - and the UK’s - own proud tradition of popular political theatre.
Dancing with Colours, Whipping with Words celebrates Fo and Rame, along with today’s artist-activists; people who make theatre which challenges authority with satire, anger and humour.
The festival includes the first ever UK exhibition of Dario Fo’s paintings, a conversation with Dario Fo and a programme of performances, events, talks and workshops addressing themes of politics, satire, feminism and activism.
Highlights include an evening with Dario Fo himself at the Lyceum Theatre to mark his 90th Birthday, an exhibition charting Fo’s 70 year career as theatre-maker and political activist,
Francis the Holy Jester performed by Mario Pirovano, close friend, former apprentice and leading interpreter of Dario Fo and his work and leading theatre artists and activists Mark Thomas and Julia Taudevin present works 100 Acts of Minor Dissent and Blow Off respectively.
Produced by Eleven. Funded by Creative Scotland and supported by the Italian Cultural Institute with venue partnerships with the Lyceum, the Traverse and the Scottish Storytelling Centre.
Programme of Events
A conversation with Dario Fo
The Nobel Prize winning Italian playwright on stage
Sunday 9 October, 5pm
Lyceum Theatre
To mark his 90th birthday, Italy's best known and most provocative satirical playwright and artist visits Edinburgh for a UK exclusive conversation event.
Dario Fo will discuss his latest book, New Tricks of the Trade, with his biographer and translator Joe Farrell. The book is an exploration of the actor’s art, told using stories from Fo’s 70 year theatrical career and illustrated with his drawings and paintings.
Exhibition
Although Dario Fo is arguably the most widely performed living playwright in world theatre, his work as a visual artist is less well known outside Italy. This is the first UK exhibition. Fo’s visual art shares many of the qualities of his writing - exuberance, radicalism and provocation combined with a love of storytelling and a deep awareness of history.
The exhibition charts Fo’s 70 year career as theatre-maker and political activist.
Lyceum Theatre, Scottish Storytelling Centre, Italian Cultural Institute
6 – 30 October
A Play, a Pie and a Pint in association with Eleven present
Breaking the Ice by Kieran Lynn
Tue 4 – Sat 8 October 1pm
Fri 7 October 7pm
Traverse Theatre
The Arctic is in danger and the only thing that can save it is bureaucracy. Frank Montgomery is the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Chief Scientific Advisor to the Arctic Council. He’s at the biannual meeting of the Council in Barrow, Alaska to give the speech that will tilt the scales. The only problem is he has spilt yogurt on his suit, left his speech at the breakfast buffet and been kidnapped by militant activists. Can he make it back to the podium before it’s too late?
Kieran Lynn’s work for the stage includes Pushing Up Poppies (Theatre 503), The Recurring Rise and Fall (Hampstead Theatre) and An Incident at the Border (Finborough Theatre and Trafalgar Studios).
A Play, a Pie and a Pint was founded in 2004 by the late David MacLennan, who also co-founded radical Scottish touring companies 7:84 and Wildcat. In its productivity, energy, creativity and unpredictability, A Play, a Pie and a Pint has clear links to the work of the Fo/Rame company.
Mario Pirovano
Francis the Holy Jester
Saturday 8 October 7.30pm
Scottish Storytelling Centre
This is a rare opportunity to see Dario Fo’s monologue, performed in English by his close friend, former apprentice and leading interpreter of his work. Mario Pirovano performs with unique zest, playing cardinals, soldiers, farmers, traders, and the saint himself, in a show without props, without scenery and with the simplest of costume.
Francis The Holy Jester draws from historic texts and folk tales to bring to life medieval Italy in classic Commedia dell’arte style, both comic and moving. Pirovano’s virtuoso solo performance is for anyone who enjoys a good story lovingly crafted and expertly told with insight, vivacity and humour.
Julia Taudevin
Blow Off
Wednesday 12 and Thursday 13 October 7.30pm
Traverse Theatre
I’m not going to tell you her hair colour. Her skin colour. Whether she has an almond or a heart shaped face. All you need to know, right now, is that she is a person. Walking up a street. A street that you know.
Explosive new guerrilla-gig-theatre with live music by Kim Moore with Susan Bear and Julie Eisenstein from Glasgow's indie-pop duo Tuff Love. This fierce and playful feminist work explores the psychology of extremism with haunting melodies and progressive punk riffs.
Julia Taudevin is the co-creator of Beats and Chalk Farm and writer of Mary Barbour’s Daughters (Tron) and Some Other Mother (Tron/Stellar Quines).
Lakin McCarthy presents
Mark Thomas
100 Acts of Minor Dissent
Friday 14 October 7.30pm
Traverse Theatre
Mark Thomas is well versed in the art of creative mayhem and over the years his troublemaking has changed laws, cost companies millions and annoyed those who most deserved to be. Now he returns to Edinburgh to do what he does best, mischief - joyously bad behaviour with a purpose.
After his award winning show Bravo Figaro Mark set himself the task of committing 100 Acts of Minor Dissent in the space of a year. Mark catalogues everything from the smallest and silliest gesture to the grandest confrontations and the results are subversive, hilarious, mainly legal and occasionally inspiring.
PANEL DISCUSSIONS
Encounters with Fo
Friday 7 October 5pm
Traverse Theatre
Joe Farrell, biographer and translator of Dario Fo, and until retirement Professor of Italian at the University of Strathclyde, chairs a panel comprising Andy Arnold, artistic director of the Tron Theatre; Morag Fullerton, co-artistic director of A Play, a Pie and a Pint; writer Douglas Maxwell and Frances Rifkin, director of Implicated Theatre at the Serpentine Gallery. They will discuss their own encounters with the theatre of Dario Fo, and reflect on the impact of Fo's work on Scottish theatre.
Dario Fo and Political Theatre in Scotland
Thursday 13 October 6pm
Traverse Theatre
Olga Taxidou, Professor of Drama at the University of Edinburgh, chairs a panel comprising playwright Peter Arnott; David Greig, playwright and artistic director of the Royal Lyceum Theatre; Professor Federica Pedrialli, Head of Italian at the University of Edinburgh and Dr Linda Mackenney, Head of English at George Watson’s School and writer on Scottish popular theatre. The panel will discuss the relationships between the theatre of Dario Fo and the traditions of radical political theatre in Scotland.
Workshop:The Second time as Farce
Olly Crick and Frances Rifkin
Saturday 8 October, 10am-4pm
"History repeats itself. The first time as tragedy, and the second time as farce." Karl Marx
This one-off workshop is an invitation to learn, explore and then empower yourselves to create your own contemporary and relevant comic farce.
A collaboration between two experts in their fields, the workshop is suitable for all performers, theorists and activists. Frances Rifkin, who trained and worked with Augusto Boal, will lead the opening session focusing through Boal’s Image Theatre. Olly Crick, a practitioner and published author on Commedia, will lead the second section, using Masks to add definition and comic agency to the subject matter developed in the workshop and the Commedia form to embody the chosen themes into a dramatic format.
Frances Rifkin is the initiator of the Dario Fo Edinburgh exhibition and Artistic Director of Implicated Theatre, based at the Serpentine Gallery. Olly Crick is a UK based Commedia practitioner who has co-authored “Commedia dell’Arte, a Handbook for Troupes” with John Rudlin (2001) and co-edited “The Routledge Companion to Commedia dell’Arte” (2015).
I Mother rehearsed reading
Traverse Theatre
Fri 7 October 4pm
Performed by Maria Oller. Written by Morna Pearson. Directed by Caitlin Skinner
Inspired by Franca Rame’s The Mother and by recent events. I, Mother takes place a few days after a local terrorist attack. The terrorist happens to be the son of Mother. Mother escapes the intrusive press camped on her doorstep by scaling her neighbour’s fence in the back garden. Her neighbour’s living room is where she takes refuge and explores her emotions as she watches the tragedy unfold on TV. Eventually she struggles to keep touch with reality.
I, Mother is a new play currently in development. This work-in-progress performed reading is part of a research and development process and the audience will be invited to give written feedback following the performance.
Season produced by Eleven www.elevenhq.com
Funded by Creative Scotland and supported by the Italian Cultural Institute
With venue partnerships with The Lyceum, the Traverse and the Scottish Storytelling Centre.
Co-curated by Joe Farrell and Frances Rifkin.
Venue Information
Traverse Theatre
10 Cambridge Street, Edinburgh
EH1 2ED
0131 228 1404
traverse.co.uk
Italian Cultural Institute
82 Nicolson St, Edinburgh EH8 9EW
0131 668 2232
iicedimburgo.esteri.it
Royal Lyceum Theatre
30b Grindlay Street, Edinburgh, EH3 9AX
0131 248 4848
lyceum.org.uk
Scottish Storytelling Centre
EH1 1SR
0131 556 9579
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